A Machine to Machine, called M2M communication network is composed of various M2M nodes and a bearer network. The M2M nodes communicate with each other through the bearer network. An M2M node may include but is not limited to an application entity or a public service entity. The application entity is a logic unit which actually executes an M2M application, and the public service entity is a logic unit which manages and serves the application.
In the architecture of an M2M system, an application node is an execution node at the end, for example, an intelligent electric meter, a temperature measurement and control sensor, a fire alarm, an intelligent home appliance etc. An intermediate node is a middleware which is connected to the execution node at the end and a server at a network side, for example a gateway. A base node is a server at the network side. Herein an application entity which is registered at the base node is generally management software or a management platform of an M2M service provider.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of an architecture of an M2M system according to the related technology. As shown in FIG. 1, the communication between M2M applications is generally achieved through interaction between Common Service Entities, called CSEs. The premise of the communication is that the M2M applications firstly need to be registered at local CSEs (for example, in FIG. 1, an application entity at an application node needs to be registered at a CSE of an intermediate node, and then the CSE at the intermediate node is a local CSE of the application entity at the application node). Then interaction between the M2M applications can be achieved through communication between the CSEs.
The application node is a physical entity, and the Application Entity, called AE is a logic unit, which is a logic unit that really executes an application on the physical entity, i.e., the application node.
When the AE is registered to the local CSE, the AE needs to provide a security certificate which can identify validity of its own to the local CSE, so that the CSE verifies the AE. Only after the validation is OK, registration can be performed at the local CSE, and meanwhile the AE further needs to provide a registration name suggested by the AE to the local CSE for reference.
Further, the registered application may further create a resource related to the application at the local CSE as a child resource of the resource of the application. For example, after the application is registered, the local CSE will create a resource “application”. In order to store data of the application, the application may create a resource “container” under the resource “application”, and the resource “container” is used to store the data of the application. The resource “application” is a parent resource of the resource “container”, and the resource “container” is a child resource of the resource “application”. In a practical operation process, if the child resource is deleted, the parent resource will not be deleted (i.e., the deletion of the child resource does not influence the parent resource). However, as long as the parent resource is deleted, all of the child resources must be deleted.
In the related technology, when an AE creates a resource at a CSE, or when a CSE requests for creating a resource at another CSE, a resource name needs to be provided, and then the CSE which is requested to create a resource will name the created resource according to the received resource name. However, in an M2M application which is practically deployed, various application nodes under an M2M network may be from various different manufacturers, and the various different manufacturers do not coordinate the above resource names with each other. For example, an intelligent television (application node) of manufacturer 1 is arranged in the home of an intelligent home user, and a resource name provided by its application entity AE1 is myTV. Besides, there is an intelligent television of manufacturer 2, and a resource name provided by its application entity AE2 is also myTV. There results in that there are two resources with the same name in the CSE, thereby bringing inconvenience to the management of the resources by the CSE. For example, when an AE requests for updating a resource which is created by the AE, the CSE may modify the two resources with the same name according to the provided resource name, but another resource with the same name should not be updated. In this way, as a result errors will occur in the applications. Therefore, due to the limitation of the related technology, it may result in that the M2M service provider limits application scenarios in order to ensure normal operations. For example, in the above examples, each CSE can only manage one intelligent television.
Thus it can be seen that in the related technology, resource creation information of a resource to be created is not analyzed and processed, which results in a problem that the management executed by the CSE is disordered due to the same name of the resource to be created as that of a resource which has already existed.